A motorist is hospitalized with gunshot wounds after a shootout with North Carolina law officers.

Multiple media organizations reported the unnamed motorist was being arrested on drug charges early Saturday in Elizabethtown when he was able to break away and grab a gun from his vehicle.

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The Bladen County Sheriff's Office said one of its deputies and an Elizabethtown police officer who arrived after the traffic stop returned fire after the driver fired first. Neither officer was hit.

The driver was shot several times and needed surgery, but the medical condition wasn't known Saturday.

Sheriff James McVicker said the deputy stopped the vehicle after the driver ran two traffic lights. The deputy then learned the driver had an outstanding felony arrest warrant on a drug possession charge.